Exercise Humour for Men and Women

Call it my horror / amusement of America's growing obesity problems, but I think the USA's problems with controlling its weight has reached a point where it is just plain FUNNY.

I mean, could you imagine if the USA were invaded by a hostile power (like in the 1984 film Red Dawn, or the 2012 remake) and the majority of Americans were too fat to put up much of a struggle?

It would just be laughable. The USA, with all of its claims of military superiority, doesn't really have the stomach (haha, fat pun) for a large scale invasion - whether it be by communists, aliens or even alien communists.

What is worse is that for those Americans who are fit, they're not fit for "combat" because their idea of a war is watching UFC or watching the U.S. military bomb Iraq on CNN.

The USA hasn't had a draft since the Vietnam War (which ended in 1975) so the average American really hasn't got a clue.

The average American only exercises 17 minutes per day (according to a 2012 survey). Now when you realize that some Americans exercise 1 or 2 hours per day, what you also realize is that many Americans simply don't exercise at all.

We have only to look at the sales of Rascal Scooters and the percentage of obese people who simply don't walk and instead use a scooter to do their daily activities.

Its reached a point where Americans are just a ridiculous joke.

Now I admit the exercise industry has its share of jokes too. I've shared a few below. But in comparison if I had to choose between bending over and ripping my pants because I am too fat for my pants... and struggling to do an exercise and looking like a fool, I am going to choose the exercise.

Maybe its just me, but being fit is worth it the pain and embarrassment along the way. Being fat is just plain embarrassing and the pain will never go away.

And this is why you should NOT get breast implants.

Father of the Year

Father of the Year

Because Having 3 Kids is No Excuse

For more Frugal Exercise ideas visit Cardio Trek - Toronto Personal Trainer.

Why Christmas is Evil... and why I love it.

Jesus was black, Jewish and born in March. He has very little to do with the modern abomination of church and idolatry that claims to celebrate his birth.

Rather Christmas is a pagan holiday, and if you follow the ten commandments - a sin if you celebrate it.

Why? Because it is idolatry to worship Saint Nicholas. That is what the modern pagan holiday of Christmas really is. Nothing more than good old fashioned idolatry.

With greed and gluttony tossed in as well. And if you add in lust - songs like Santa Baby, etc - well that just makes it an even bigger mockery.

Pagan holidays are all about partying, getting drunk, eating a lot, sex, greed, gluttony, etc. Hence why Christmas is a pagan holiday.

In which case I must admit I rather enjoy it. If anything we should have MORE pagan holidays.

And we do. Easter, Halloween, New Years, St Patricks Day, Valentines Day - they're all pagan holidays. None of them are remotely pure or virtuous. And they have almost nothing to do with religion or the occult. It is basically just an excuse to eat, drink and party.

And I must admit these are some of my favourite holidays. Any excuse to drink alcohol and eat lots of chocolate, huzzah.

And this is why most people even celebrate these holidays in the first place. Because it is a party and a celebration. If there was no celebration people would treat it the same way they do religious holidays like Lent.

What do you do for Lent? You give something up that is a vice. Like giving up smoking or giving up reality tv. Nobody celebrates Lent. Most people don't even consider it to be a real holiday because they don't get the day off from work.

The Male Brain on Internet Porn

Watch this TED Talks presentation about the effects of internet porn addiction on the male brain.

Oooo!




The presentation is in response to Philip Zimbardo's "The Demise of Guys?" TED talk and in this presentation Gary Wilson asks whether our brains evolved to handle the hyperstimulation of today's Internet enticements. He also discusses the disturbing symptoms showing up in some heavy Internet users, the surprising reversal of those symptoms, and the science behind these 21st century phenomena.

More About Gary Wilson

Gary is host of www.yourbrainonporn.com. The site arose in response to a growing demand for solid scientific information by heavy Internet erotica users experiencing perplexing, unexpected effects: escalation to more extreme material, concentration difficulties, sexual performance problems, radical changes in sexual tastes, social anxiety, irritability, inability to stop, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

As a physiology teacher with a particular interest in the latest neuroscience discoveries, Gary was aware that their symptoms might be the result of addiction-related brain changes. Applying the website's concepts of brain plasticity, many former users have braved withdrawal, reversed their symptoms and restored normal sexual responsiveness.

The site has been linked to from hundreds of threads in forums from over thirty countries, with posts numbering in the thousands. Gary blogs for "Psychology Today" and "The Good Men Project" on the extreme plasticity of adolescent brains, the evolutionary context for today's flood of novel cyber "mates," and the neurochemical reasons why superstimulating Internet delivery has unexpected effects on the brain.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Valeria Lukyanova Exercising + Makeup

Have you heard of Valeria Lukyanova?

She is the Ukrainian model with a body and face that strongly resembles the classic Barbie doll - and is billed as such in advertising work that she does.

But how did she get that insanely fit body and her face to look like Barbie?

Well the face is mostly makeup apparently. Although she has been accused of using plastic surgery, Valeria Lukyanova maintains her looks are completely the result of well executed makeup designed to make her look more like Barbie.

The name she prefers to use is "Amatue", which may sound great in her native Ukrainian, but in English looks and sounds like Amateur.

She has also been accused of having her photos photoshopped, which some of them might be, but if you watch videos of her you can see she clearly looks like that in real life. So if there is any photoshopping going on the changes are comparatively minor... things like trying to make her eyes look bigger so she looks more doll-like and un-human. And to be fair, she is already using makeup to make her eyes look bigger so photoshop seems like overkill.

See the video below to see how she manages her makeup.

The thing however is that Valeria Lukyanova claims to maintain her physique using nothing more than exercise - and judging by her workout videos (shown below) she is using low weights and high repetitions to accomplish this goal. According to a Certified Personal Trainer from Cardio Trek using low weights and a high reps workout would result in an ultra thin body, with very little muscle tone and very little fat.

Now you might think, well what about her breasts? If she is exercising that much, shouldn't she lose some of her breast size by working out so much?

Not necessarily. Some women are simply blessed with well-developed breasts, and breast size doesn't decrease dramatically unless they're either anorexic or taking steroids. Natural breasts will ultimately look natural. And looking at the photo above, they're not HUGE and they do appear to be proportional for the size of her chest. And certainly not abnormal when you consider the number of women I've seen at the beach with similar proportions (although they are usually teens or in their 20s if they look that perky).

What is more unnerving is how thin she looks, but without that bony look that anorexic women typically get. Again, this could be due to her exercise routine. So lets have a look at her exercise videos below and see what she is actually doing.

So yes, we can conclude that she is exercising to keep her body ultra thin, but maintaining just a small amount of muscle tone so she doesn't look anorexic. Chalk that down to a very specific exercise routine.

But lets imagine you want to look like Barbie too. Can you do it? Is it even possible?

Well with exercise, you could certainly try to get part of the way there, and you would look fabulous. But its doubtful that you have the right facial proportions and some impressive skills with makeup to do what Valeria Lukyanova does.

See also

10 Tips for maintaining a Beach Perfect Body

Weight Loss + Loose Skin

Snog Burning at Work

A lot of Canadian men out there have been growing beards lately, apparently unafraid of what women might say about the dreaded snog burn that comes from kissing a man with a beard. What is behind this trend?

Honestly from what I can tell the whole question as to whether to shave or go primal largely depends on several factors:

#1. Social acceptance at work and/or can I get a job with a beard? Because lets face it, people have in-person interviews so they can see what you look like.

#2. Whether the girlfriend or wife likes facial hair. This can be a big deciding factor for many men.

#3. Whether celebrities are doing it too. eg. We see George Clooney doing it and think we can too.

#4. Whether a particular person actually looks good with a beard. Because lets face it, we don't all look like George Clooney. Some of us look horrible with a beard.

I suppose it would not be so bad if we all lived in Muslim countries where beards were both socially accepted and even expected of men.

In contrast to a more moderate country like Iraq, where mustaches are more socially acceptable.

The whole trick with growing a beard - which I have done numerous times in the past - is that growing one changes how people view you.

Back in Summer 2002 I grew a beard for 3-4 months (and looked like Jesus) and discovered that people treated me differently. Rudely. I call it "anti-beardism".

Thus if so many people consider beards to be unattractive, why would some women consider beards attractive and enjoy "snog burning" (kissing a bearded man)?

Personal preference? Because it tickles / burns your face, sometimes even causing a rash?

I do not have an answer. Any women who read this, feel free to provide your answer in the comments below as to why you enjoy kissing a man with a beard because we really want to know.

Facial hair styles through the decades...

1920s to 1930s - Mustaches.

1940s - Sideburns.

1950s - Beatnik beards and mustaches.

1960s - Hippie beards.

1970s - P*rnstar mustaches.

1980s - Stubble.

1990s - Goatee.

2000s - Peace Patch / The Movember.

I would also point out that for men university and college is a big liberator for facial hair. Walk around an university campus and you see men who look like Grizzly Adams, cavemen, 1920s gangsters and James Bond villains.

Enter the business world and every man (almost all) are clean shaven. Can you name a CEO with a mustache or goatee? Probably not.

Same goes with lawyers. Ever seen a lawyer with a beard? I have not.

Politicians. Sometimes, but it is a rarity these days. Nobody wants to be compared to Hitler or Stalin.

George Clooney could probably pull off a pretty handsome Stalin if Hollywood ever wanted to make a biopic on him.

And then there is the Fu Manchu style mustache... popularized (not really) by people like Hulk Hogan, Samuel L. Jackson and a few others.

You are more likely to see that particular mustache on an American football player or redneck than anyone else.

Some men also grow beards during the winter.

Just, you know, to keep their faces warm.

Makes perfect sense.

But if they're applying for a job chances are likely they will shave it off just to look younger.

Or shave it off to increase their chances of attracting a woman.

But grow it again later, once they feel like expressing their individuality, after they feel secure in their job and love life.

Men using Make-Up in South Korea

South Korean men spent $495.5 million on skincare last year, accounting for nearly 21% of global sales, according to global market research firm Euromonitor International. South Korea is the male makeup capital of the world.

That is a mind-boggling number from a socially conservative country with mandatory two-year military conscription for men. It is a very male dominated country where women live in fear of not marrying before the age of 30 and becoming known as an ajumma (grandmother).

Young Korean men are making meticulous efforts to paint the perfect face in an effort to land the perfect job. Their goal is to make their skin look flawless and lighter and highlighting eyebrows until they're thicker, bolder.

The end goal is to look sophisticated and more Western. (Koreans sometimes have darker skin and the standard of beauty in Korea is to have very pale white skin.)

Estimates are that total sales of men's cosmetics in South Korea this year will be more than $885 million, despite there being only 19 million adult men in South Korea. That means the average Korean is now spending $46.58 on cosmetics... and you have to figure the older generation isn't doing it quite so much and its mostly younger men.

It really comes down to fierce competition for jobs, advancement and even romance. South Korean women now have a growing expectation that men will take the time and effort to pamper their skin.
And it is being encouraged by companies too. Korean Air holds once-a-year makeup classes for male flight attendants and other companies are also giving lessons.

In South Korea effeminate male beauty has become "a marker of social success", meaning if you are successful, you wear make-up. So people who want to be successful are choosing to wear make-up in an effort to further that goal.

And its being pushed in the popular media which says that flawless skin is a crucial part of any plan to get ahead at work and romance.

It wasn't always this way. The ideal South Korean man used to be rough and tough. A lot has changed since the 1990s, allowing in more Japanese products and exposing South Koreans to different ideas on male beauty, including popular Japanese manga comics featuring pretty, effeminate men.

James Turnbull, a writer and lecturer on Korean feminism, sexuality and popular culture, said the economic crisis that hit South Korea in 1997 and 1998 also played a role in shifting thinking. Struggling companies often fired their female employees first, angering women who had already seen their push for equal rights take a backseat to protest movements against Japanese colonizers and the autocratic governments that followed. As such South Korea never really had much of a feminist movement.

So instead now Korea is having a shift in the other direction: A Male Effeminate Movement.

It isn't just make-up either. Many South Korean young men are adopting metro-sexual lifestyles in an effort to fit in and get ahead socially.

In 2002, a hero of South Korea's World Cup soccer team, Ahn Jung-hwan, who became a leading member of the "flower men" — a group of exceptionally good-looking, smooth-skinned, fashionable sports stars and celebrities who found great success selling male cosmetics. Men everywhere began striving to look like them, with the encouragement of the women around them, and the new trend was started.

Ten years later, ads featuring handsome, heavily made-up male celebrities are now unavoidable / part of the Korean scenery and young men using makeup is now commonplace.

So will this happen in North America? Difficult to say. With the Emo movement and fops like Justin Bieber you have to wonder...

Her Diary Vs His Diary

Sometimes you just need to avoid over-thinking things.

Cooking (Italian) for Men

Pasta is one of the easiest foods you can make.

Seriously, it must have been invented by a lazy man who wanted to be able to just pop it in hot water, boil it, stir it, add some veggies and voila... dinner is served!

Of course to reach that point you first need to have the dry pasta.

HOW TO MAKE DRY PASTA

Ingredients: 5 large Eggs, 1 lb fine Flour, Salt

1 Whisk eggs into flour until thoroughly mixed, or blend with a food processor.

2 Dump mixture onto a clean, floured work-surface.

3 Form a large mound of dough.

4 Knead the dough until it feels smooth and seamless in your hands. This will keep your noodles springy and al dente after cooking.

5 Roll out long, thin sheets of pasta with a rolling pin on a floured work surface from small handfuls of dough. Alternately, use a pasta machine. Be careful to have a long, clear work surface available for this step. Keep rolling the pasta down until it's the thickness you need, for example stuffed pasta should be thinner than noodles like spaghetti or fettucine.

6 Cut and shape your pasta immediately as fresh pasta dries quickly.

DRYING YOUR PASTA

7 Spread out pasta on floured baking sheets or baking paper in a dry environment.

8 Let dry until stiff to the touch. This could be up to five days.

9 Hang long pasta, like spaghetti and fettuicine to dry on a sterilized rack or a pasta drying rack, ideally something designed specifically for this purpose but you can find other ways to hang and dry it as long as it is clean.

10 Put pasta away in glass jars, tupperware, or plastic bags when completely dry and stiff to the touch.

CONCLUSIONS

Okay, so technically there is more work required to first make the dry pasta... but its a relatively simple process, easy to mass produce and you can store pasta up for years. Handy if you ever decide to get Italian cooking lessons in Toronto so you can "up your game" in the kitchen.

And let us be serious about this for a moment, many men out there are not that good at anything in the kitchen. It really is only during the last 100 years that men have begun to take being a chef seriously and even though the word chef now makes people think automatically of a man, men in general aren't particular good at cooking. Getting private cooking lessons thus makes abundant sense if you are planning to up your game. It doesn't have to be Italian either. You could get cooking lessons in Toronto for a variety of different topics.

Offensive Fiat boob job commercial

What is interesting about the following car ad is how it is both offensive, but also accurately depicts what a typical man would think and how he would react in such a situation.

Which makes me think that most women would be utterly offended if they knew what men really thought on a regular basis.

Typical Guy Mistakes at Work

LOVE / SEX - I was tempted to call this post "Being a Bonehead at Work".

As a guy I, on a regular basis, sometimes make stupid mistakes. Bonehead mistakes. Its not that I am stupid... its just that I wasn't thinking.

For women when men do that they call it something else. Being Inconsiderate, because we didn't think of their feelings when we did something stupid.

Now I want to point out that doing a Typical Guy Mistake happens a lot. We just don't think sometimes and we do something and only afterwards realize we were being a bonehead.

Somewhere out there in the world I can guarantee there is multiple men making a bonehead mistake right now... and at the same time there is a bunch of others who are regretting their action.

Typical Guy Mistakes aren't the result of greed, hatred or malice. Although some of them might be done in the name of laziness and/or efficiency. As guys we have a tendency to think of the most efficient use of our time... so if we can carry 3 boxes up the stairs in one trip instead of making 3 trips, well by golly, we're going to carry all three boxes at once!

And that isn't really laziness because we're doing extra effort to make more efficient use of time. It takes us more energy to carry all three boxes at once.

Now if we drop 1 of the boxes and it contained your great-grandmother's antique heirloom knitting needles and the knitting needles get broken... well, gee, we're sorry. We thought we could do it without too much difficulty and weren't thinking about the danger to your precious heirloom.

And such things just happen.

Another Typical Guy Mistake is when we blurt something out and we're being honest. Nothing wrong with the truth right? Ha, if only.

Another Typical Guy Mistake is when we embarrass you by behaving like a dumb*ss. You roll your eyes in embarrassment and look the other way and later berate us later about how its rude to ask Asian people where they're from and conversing with them in their native language (as someone who speaks Korean, Japanese and Mandarin I've done this a lot, mostly because I use any excuse to hone my language skills and get needed practice).

I think you get the point.

The thing about Typical Guy Mistakes is that we know we were being stupid when we made the mistakes, but we don't think we did anything wrong. This is an important disctinction.

Doing something stupid is a whoops. Sorry. I wasn't thinking.

Doing something wrong means we did something immoral out of greed, hatred, envy, etc.

Thus sometimes men will refuse to apologize for a Typical Guy Mistake because we didn't do anything immoral. We already know we did something stupid, but morality isn't part of equation.

We can apologize for our stupidity, but sometimes if we've done multiple stupid mistakes these things add up and women get annoyed at the sheer number of mistakes. If the woman in our life is the type who keeps bringing up old mistakes this isn't going to help either. At some point in resulting arguments she might even refer to him as "a Complete Bonehead".

Being a Complete Bonehead means you're a guy who makes Typical Guy Mistakes on a regular (perhaps even daily) basis. Watch old episodes of Tim Allen on the "Home Improvement" TV show from the 1990s and you will get to see a Complete Bonehead in action.

I am going to give a personal example. One week before Valentines I was at my girlfriend's place and we discussed me staying the night. It was still early in the relationship and she had mentioned wanting to stay up late sometime talking. I was all for snuggling and chatting. However my interest in doing so was apparently misconstrued as sexual lust and she got scared of the seriousness of the relationship and 4 days later we broke up.

Now... did I do anything immoral? Nope. Was it a stupid mistake for me to want to spend the night and chat? Yes.

Now during the actual break up I did another one. I complained about how she frequently changes her mind, cancels meetings, changes meetings and so forth. Sometimes she can't even make up her mind. (If you've ever dated someone like this you know how annoying and frustrating this is.) I felt she was being inconsiderate and selfish by not taking into account my feelings and schedule and the effort I was putting into doing nice things for her. ie. The one time she was supposed to come over for spicy spaghetti and watch movies, but instead she cancelled and went straight home because she was "too tired" from work.

I was upset and said something stupid. Regardless that its true that she does those things, it was still stupid of me to bring up the topic during the breakup.

But in retrospect she was probably just making Typical Girl Mistakes when she cancelled or changed all those meetings. She wasn't thinking, the same way I wasn't thinking.

She knew I was making the meal for her but it never occurred to her that I was making a huge effort making her a special meal and that I would be upset if she cancelled at the last minute.

Such things just happen.

The only thing we can do is try and practice forgiveness and this works equally well for both sexes.

"Lets just stay friends" at Work

LOVE + SEX - Ever started seeing someone and then they suggest the two of you should stay friends for now and then maybe become lovers later? The concept is that you become friends first and then over time a romantic relationship grows. At a snails' pace, if ever.

Well there is something fundamentally wrong with that idea. Several things when you think about it.

#1. You are leading the other person on with the promise of possible romance later. Essentially you are wasting their time.

#2. You are browsing. Having a look but without making any commitments. If you end up seeing multiple people this way but aren't "together" with any of them you're basically just using all of them and taking advantage of them.

#3. The other person may hold off having relationships with other people because they don't believe in seeing multiple people at the same time. Even though you're "just friends" it is implied that romance will eventually follow and most people don't believe in browsing like that because its too much like cheating.

#4. Browsing can lead to cheating. Being "just friends" with multiple people can cause multiple romantic relationships to form and love triangles. This only leads to problems.

#5. People who try to control the flow of a relationship (aka relationship control freaks) usually don't have long term relationships because their controlling nature annoys people and is counter-productive to romance.

#6. This creates an unfair and unequal relationship.

My advice?

Anyone who suggests "Lets just stay friends" should be given either an ultimatum or avoided completely. In my experience these wishy-washy people need to make a decision (especially if they are the cheating type, since wishy-washy people often cheat). If they actually like you they should just date you. If they can't accept such a commitment then they just don't like you that much.

Sort of like the book "He's just not that into you."

There is no point in being left dangling on a hook while the other person continues to fish for bigger and better catches. Keeping you dangling means you're a backup plan, a 2nd fiddle, a spare wheel... except you're not even really that. You're a maybe. A might be replacement who may never be asked to fulfill a role.

And the silly thing is that the other person can change their mind at any time, creating an unfair and unequal relationship.

My advice?

Don't give such wishy-washy people the satisfaction of dangling people like that. They're not worth wasting your time on.

There are plenty of fish out there and you don't need to waste your time with someone who is wishy-washy and can't make a simple decision.

A Man's Guide to Fashion

FASHION - According to Harrison Fjord... this is how men should dress. :)

How to Tie a Full Windsor Knot

FASHION - If you've always wondered but never tried it, here it is: Instructions, diagram and a video demonstration of how to tie a Full Windsor Knot. (Also known as a Double Windsor Knot.)

INSTRUCTIONS FOR A FULL WINDSOR KNOT.

#1. The Windsor knot needs a lot more length of the necktie to tie this knot. Make certain that the broad end of the tie hangs down much lower. Cross the wider end of the tie over the narrow end and hold in place with two fingers (one finger on the back and one on the front).

#2. Take the wide end of the tie and pull it through the loop on your neck. Then take the wide end of the tie and wrap it back behind the narrow end.

#3. Now take the wide end of the tie and pull it through the loop across from the side of the previous wrapping.

#4. Slightly tighten it so it is snug, and pull the wide end back over the front of the knot. Don’t pull tight but create a loop.

#5. Pull the wide end of the tie through the loop at the front of the knot.

#6. Slightly tighten the knot. Make sure that the wide end of the tie lies centered and doesn’t fall into the crevice created of the two wrappings.

#7. Give the knot some final adjustment to make sure it is good and snug and flip down your collars. You are done tying the Double Windsor knot.

NOTE: If it doesn't look perfect, undo and do it over again. Practice makes perfect.

Oddly enough the best video I could find demonstrating how to tie a Full Windsor Knot is by a woman... you go girl!

Being Sexy at Work

SEX - Do you know what sells lingerie? Its not the sex, its the mystery of what lays beneath and it leaves the female body parts up to our imagination.

It doesn't even have to be lingerie. It can be any kind of fashion item provided it actually clothes the body.

Take the photo on the right as an example. It gets the point across. Its attractive and alluring... but all of this depends on the imagination. Skin by itself doesn't provoke much imagination. Its the shape of the skin and the flesh underneath. Muscles. Angles. Curves. And you don't need bare flesh to see curves.

And this works equally well with men.

What looks more attractive? A man wearing an extra large baggy shirt?

Or a man wearing a tight-fitting shirt which shows his physique?

The answer for most people is obvious, the tight-fitting shirt.

The problem however is if you are overweight... and have rolls of fat that you want to hide. That is when the baggy clothes comes in because you are looking to hide fatty rolls.

Lets look at the following photos as an example... two similarly attractive women both wearing grey... but you can see the curves of this woman on the right because her clothes are tight fitting.

Now once you've learned this fashion sexiness principle you realize why you its important to do two things when trying to attract a mate:

#1. Stay fit. Get nice abs. Do yoga and cardio.
#2. Wear clothes suitable for your size that is either tight fitting or not too baggy.

And provided you have a nice personality to go with your sexy body you will have no problem attracting a mate.